Incorrect, inconsistent and illogical Hold assignments to locations and cells

[taleden]

Fair enough; I certainly didn't expect you to agree with everything, just figured it was worth suggesting.

 

Do your itemized rebuttals imply that you agree with the remainder? Because although there's plenty of room of debate over things near borders, I think the more important thing is to resolve obvious errors (including, for example, the Yorgrim/Ysgramor mixup) and to make the borders at least internally consistent (such as the whole StonehillBluff/Mzark/LordStone mess).

[Arthmoor]

Yes, anything that wasn't mentioned was fixed.

[taleden]

Just a couple of followup comments after going through these and adjusting my border coordinates to match:

 

BleakwindBluffLocation and RebelsCairnLocation are both solidly within The Reach according to where the official border is drawn just west of Rorikstead. The positioning puts that right around where the foothills begin, not at the top of the ridge line. Plus, both of these are Forsworn related locations and the game is crystal clear that they only operate within The Reach. So these will not be altered.

In that case, by the same reasoning, should Serpent's Bluff be moved to the Reach? It's also a Forsworn location that's near the top of the ridge. And if that's done, then Moldering Ruins (DG) should probably also be moved to the Reach, since it lies directly between Serpent's Bluff and Bleakwind Bluff.

 

BrittleshinPassLocation will need to be left alone since the location also covers the interior and changing it to an unexpected location like TamrielLocation could be disruptive to any radiant quests that may get assigned there.

 

GraniteHillLocation will be left alone as the official map is pretty explicit about where the border is at that location.

In that case, Bloated Man's Grotto should probably also be left in Falkreath, else it will imply an oddly squiggly border that loops north to put the crossroads in Falkreath, south to put Bloated Man's Grotto in Whiterun, and then north again to put North Brittleshin Pass in Falkreath.

[Arthmoor]

Yes, Serpent's Bluff Redoubt should be in The Reach too. Will fix that.

 

Bloated Man's Grotto is debatable on some level I suppose. The border on the official map is close enough to the site that it could probably go either way.

 

The problem with using Brittleshin Pass as a comparison is that there is no in-game distinction between "North" and "South" other than map markers, which have no meaning for location data. There is only a north and south entrance to a single cell which has to go into one location or another.

[Arthmoor]

Yeah, gonna have to drop Bloated Man's Grotto. Changing the location parent looks like it's trying to break the location data along with it.

[lmstearn]

@Taleden:

Apparently email links aren't allowed anymore.

Any chance of procuring an updated version of the map with the background? No space for sharing provided by your ISP? Not on Onedrive? Perhaps the Assimilation Lab has some space.

Other possibilities:

These

Google Drive

Offload looks interesting.

Pity about Stashbox.

 

Thanks.

[taleden]

Yes, Serpent's Bluff Redoubt should be in The Reach too. Will fix that.

 

Bloated Man's Grotto is debatable on some level I suppose. The border on the official map is close enough to the site that it could probably go either way.

 

The problem with using Brittleshin Pass as a comparison is that there is no in-game distinction between "North" and "South" other than map markers, which have no meaning for location data. There is only a north and south entrance to a single cell which has to go into one location or another.

 

I can see how the entrance to Bloated Man's Grotto could possibly be on either side of the border, but you enter going south, so it seems safe to say that the interior would be Falkreath, in which case the exterior should too.

 

As for Brittleshin, I was first going to suggest making a new USKPBrittleshinPassNorthLocation parented to Whiterun to be assigned to the exterior cell on the north side only, so that the interior cell and the exterior cell at the southern entrance could remain in Falkreath. But since you're going to leave the Granite Hills crossroads in Falkreath, it made less sense to try to draw the border line down the mountains, so then it seemed fine to just let North Brittleshin also be in Falkreath (just barely).

 

Yeah, gonna have to drop Bloated Man's Grotto. Changing the location parent looks like it's trying to break the location data along with it.

 

Not sure what you mean by this, but it sounds like something I noticed myself while tinkering with Locations in my own patch plugin. I asked in the "quick questions" thread on the CK forums but got no response; maybe you have more insight:

 

I recently came across a few LCTN (Location) records that have an incorrect PNAM (Parent Location), so I made a little quick fix mod in the CK to correct them. The only thing I did in the CK was to open a few Location records, change their Parent Location, and immediately save them; I didn't do anything in the Cell View or in any other fields of the Location records.

 

But when I look at my quick fix in TES5Edit, I see that entire subrecords of the modified Location, containing dozens of entries, have been completely deleted in my patch:

• LCPR (Location Cell Persistent Reference)
• LCUN (Location Cell Unique)
• ACSR (Actor Cell Static Reference)
• LCSR (Location Cell Static Reference)
• RCSR (Reference Cell Static Reference)
• ACEC (Actor Cell Encounter Cell)
• LCEC (Location Cell Encounter Cell)
• RCEC (Reference Cell Encounter Cell)
• LCID (Location Cell Marker Reference)
• ACEP (Actor Cell Enable Point)
• LCEP (Location Cell Enable Point)

In addition, the RCEC (Reference Cell Encounter Cell) originally had multiple entries, but in my patch has only one of the original entries remaining.

 

I assume that means the CK just neglected to write these subrecords when saving the modified Location in my plugin, but I'm not sure if that's a problem. Can I leave them as-is or do I need to use TES5Edit to copy over those subrecords from the master? I did notice that Location records changed by the USKP exhibit the same thing, so maybe it's fine, but I just wanted to check.

 

Is that what you meant? I've noticed that if I use TES5Edit to "copy as override" on a Location then it doesn't do that, but I'm not sure which is the preferred behavior. Maybe the CK does that for a reason? Maybe those subrecords *shouldn't* be duplicated in an override record?

 

@Taleden:

Apparently email links aren't allowed anymore.

Any chance of procuring an updated version of the map with the background? No space for sharing provided by your ISP? Not on Onedrive? Perhaps the Assimilation Lab has some space.

Other possibilities:

These

Google Drive

Offload looks interesting.

Pity about Stashbox.

 

Thanks.

 

Yeah, I can find somewhere to post a new spreadsheet and draw diagram, just wanted to finalize exactly which edits the USKP is going to make, so that the two can be in agreement.

[Arthmoor]

No, not really. I wandered over there in game and it was acting weird. Dropped the location change and went back, seemed perfectly fine. Not sure what to make of it but that was just with the USKP loaded and it's not worth taking the chance that it might happen to other people too.

 

The TES5Edit info you're looking at is normal. It isn't ideally suited to being able to display what's happening there. You should check out this topic if you haven't already: http://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/3940-skyrim-tes5edit-records-that-merge-at-runtime/

[x79]

So, correct me if I'm wrong: There are no coordinates for hold borders? It is simply which hold that the cell belongs to that determines which hold the player is in?

[Arthmoor]

Yep, pretty much. Most generic wilderness cells don't even have locations assigned either, so if there's some other means of figuring out which hold you're in, the game is keeping that secret well hidden.

[taleden]

So, correct me if I'm wrong: There are no coordinates for hold borders? It is simply which hold that the cell belongs to that determines which hold the player is in?

Officially, that's right -- most interior and a handful of exterior cells have Location assignments which in turn have Parent Locations that eventually lead to one of the "Hold" locations such as WhiterunHoldLocation. But for the majority of wilderness cells with no Location, I don't think the game really knows which hold you're technically in, because in most cases in the base game it doesn't actually make any difference.

 

But I made a mod for which it does make a difference, so unofficially, I've just defined my own set of border coordinates to use for that purpose. That's part of what led to this thread, because in the process of doing that, I noticed that lots of the assigned locations actually didn't make any sense.

 

I can send you the coordinates I'm using if you're interested, but they're decidedly un-official.

[x79]

I can send you the coordinates I'm using if you're interested, but they're decidedly un-official.

Yes, please. I would like that. I was thinking of making myself a map mod using screenshots of the UESP map but with hold borders. I have PSD's of the hold borders from ChromeWarrior's map but It's kinda hard to change the colors. I ran across this thread by searching for a way to get the (nonexistant) hold border data.

I think I remember seeing a mod on nexus that showed what hold you are in. Maybe it was only when you saved?